"That's not going to happen probably for another year and a half while we develop scripts and everything else," he says. "But it's fantastic; we've got some incredible writers. It's going to be much darker, much more character-based, and I think it's going to be everything the fans always wanted the prequels to be. They'll be one-hour episodes. It takes place between Episodes III and IV. It's going to be all-new characters, maybe a few bounty hunters in there to start the series off."

He added that George Lucas just finished the Indiana Jones 4 script and Steven Spielberg is having that rewritten.

The TV series spin-off of the Stars Wars film franchise will run to at least 100 episodes, according to producer Rick McCallum.

He told BBC Radio 1 the writing team would soon be meeting to start on the project, which would begin filming in 2008 and be ready the same year. "Hopefully if we can make it work and everybody's excited and watches it we will keep on going," said McCallum. The series will be set between episodes three and four of the film saga. It would cover the 20 years in the life of Luke Skywalker growing up that remains a mystery to most film-goers. McCallum said there would be "a whole bunch of new characters" and the series would be "much more dramatic and darker".

He added that it was unlikely any of the stars of the movies would be involved in the TV series. Star Wars creator George Lucas has just completed writing the script for the next Indiana Jones film and will then begin work on Red Tails, about African-American pilots in World War II. Following completion of that film, work will begin on the Star Wars TV series.

There has already been a Star Wars series spin-off in the shape of the animated Clone Wars, which began as three-minute episodes before they were expanded to 30-minute shows.

Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, released in 2005, marked the end of the end of the Star Wars saga on the big screen. It became the biggest film franchise in history, with the final film alone taking £500m at the box office outside of the US.

Rick McCallum, George Lucas' longtime Star Wars producing partner, told SCI FI Wire that future projects are a ways off, including a live-action TV show that is at least a year and a half away. "Star Wars TV series, probably not for a couple of years," McCallum said in an interview at the Saturn Awards in Universal City, Calif., on May 2. "George is starting to start the basic concept of it. ... We're interviewing writers. We're seeing a lot of people. But I'd say it's not going to be happening for another at least 18 months."

McCallum also denied rumors that the new series would focus on members of the Skywalker family, but repeated that the show will take place in the timeframe between Episode III and IV. "All-new characters," he added. "That missing 20-year period when Luke is growing up. ... Think bounty hunter. That's all I can tell you. There's nobody else that you'll know [in it]. At the moment. You know, it's still [in] really, really early stages. He hasn't really sat down to think about which direction [he's going]."

McCallum added that 3-D theatrical versions of the Star Wars movies are still planned. "We're working on that," he said. "It's just a question of how many theaters will be out there. Hopefully, by the end of this year there will be about 1,500 [3-D] theaters. We need about two or three thousand before it makes it, you know, viable for any of us to go out in 3-D. But that looks like it will happen sometime in the year 2007, so hopefully we'll be happy about that."

Lucas is also planning a new run of Clone Wars-themed animated shorts. "There's an animated series being done right now, so that probably also won't be ready for another year," McCallum said. "But, yeah, that's looking really good."

In an interview with Dutch website toschestation, producer Rick McCallum talked about plans for the DVD release of "Young Indiana Jones" and the current status of the live-action "Star Wars" TV series. Here's an excerpt:

You mentioned "Young Indiana Jones". When will it finally be released on DVD?

We are hoping that the first set will be released just before Christmas. I'm not sure about the date since Paramount is releasing it. Since Star Wars was finished one of the things we have been doing was making 94 documentaries which will be completed by the end of this month. (editors note: april 2007) These go with the TV series. There is a historical timeline that takes you trough the life of Young Indy and incredible documentaries about the people that he meets. That was a fun and fantastic experience.

Will "Young Indiana Jones" be used as a blueprint for the upcoming live action Star Wars television series?

Most people forget that it takes three and a half, four years to make a Star Wars film. It's long and that is why we are so excited to make the TV series because it's much more character driven, you make a mistake one week and fix it the next week. You got this extraordinary story of twenty years between Episode III and IV while Luke is growing up that needs to be explored. So, we are looking forward to it. One of the things we are also looking forward to is finding a new group of talent to work with on feature films very much the same way as we did with Young Indy. Almost everyone that worked on Young Indy stayed with us for seventeen years or longer and some are still with us. Now we're gonna start off with a new group, the next generation of filmmakers.

Could you tell us something about the status of the Star Wars television series? Something about the actors maybe?

I can't tell you anything about actors because we're not there yet. This is a long process to get it right. First of all: where are we going to shoot? Then: who's going to write? And finally: who's going to direct? George has been working for the last seven, eight months on the story arc line of where the series goes. The dream is to do way over one hundred hours of it. If we can get it right, we have some fantastic characters that nobody has ever met before and start a whole other world of Star Wars that comes out every week instead of every three years.

Will any of the older characters appear in the series?

It's a whole different group of characters.

When do you expect the first episode will be televised?

That's tough. The TV world is changing a lot. Hopefully we will have finished the first episode by the end of 2008, so that in 2009 it can come out.

"During the press junket for "Knowing," actress Rose Byrne let slip that George Lucas is currently casting for his upcoming live-action "Star Wars" TV series. "A lot of my friends have been auditioning for it," she told MTV News.

According to Lucas, the show will focus on minor characters from the saga and be set in the time period between "Revenge of the Sith" (Episode III) and the original "Star Wars" (Episode IV). The action will follow the Rebel Alliance as it slowly gains strength against the Empire. There will be Stormtroopers, but no Jedi or Darth Vader will appear on screen.

As he did with the "Clone Wars" series, Lucas will write and shoot an entire year's worth of episodes before looking for a cable channel on which to air the series."

Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy says, “This series will allow Jon the chance to work with a diverse group of writers and directors and give Lucasfilm the opportunity to build a robust talent base.” The company did not announce any further details about Favreau’s series, nor a release date.